Sunday, November 9, 2014

Here's a look at some recent work by one of my favorite Utica artists, Jenn Massi. We met through my work with the Project-U group: Her husband Tim Schram owns The Dev, a gastropub music venue and art viewing space basically run by an ambitious guy about my age who also grew up on Gary Numan. I'm getting used to that happening a lot and was agog when first encountering Jenn's work last winter. That her background is in film made a heckuva lot of sense when contemplating the light-through nature of her plug-in box creations and this group had a genuine masterpiece amongst it.

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi, detail.

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi, and one of the finest works of figurative painting to grace my eyes in ages. That it's also a light box creation with illumination filtering through creepy X-ray shots just makes it all the more cool, and her reserved use of color preserves a quiet austerity to the form which would have been lost by anything brighter.

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

Jenn Massi

A nice picture of the guy's hat while Jenn introduces the film which she and husband Tim had collaborated on, and which I wish I could supply as it was really something BADASS.

With the artiste! And I'm happy to report that Jenn eagerly agreed to take part in some of the shows I've got in the works for 2015 both in Utica and Syracuse. One of which will involve a meeting between machines & traditional art in the human scale which should be right up her alley. Expect to see more!